Visit 2River in early January 2019 to read or download Inscape, a chapbook of poems by members of the Summer Workshop at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vermont.
Sally Albiso has published three chapbooks: Newsworthy (Camber Press) and two others from Finishing Line Press: The Notion of Wings and The Fire Eater and the Bearded Lady. Moonless Grief was released by MoonPath Press this spring.
Before dawn, before other crews pull up,
even my own; before a tailgate drops
and coiled cable, pipe and drills scrape the truck bed,
emerge and unpack themselves; before the apron
slung from the waist is weighted: fasteners, driver bits,
meter and tape; before conduit saddles obstacles, saws
wind up and roar; before a compressor kicks the drums of my ear,
I rub a cricked neck, look across the cove. A tanager whistle.
The soft swell of light. The sharp profile of a spruce on the ridge.
Mark Prudowsky is a retired contractor who now teaches in a community college construction program. He is a graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA program for writers.
It’s near the beginning of the Fall semester, and that means a new Fall issue of The 2River View, with exciting poems by Maggie Hess, Erin Carlyle, Clara Chu, Mark Conway, Caitlin Ferguson, Sandra Kolankiewizc, Josie Levin, Mark Prudowsky, Jill Roberts, Jonathan Scruggs, and Rebecca A. Spears–all fine poets ranging from long established writers to a high school senior. Keep in touch with Muddy Bank for a few teasers prior to the full release of the issue.
While you wait for Mother’s Day this coming Sunday and the Summer release of The 2River View, go ahead and spend time looking again at 30 Po’ Cards in 30 Days, 2River’s celebration of National Poetry Month: April 2018.
Visit 2River this Sunday on Mother’s Day for the Summer issue of The 2River View, with new poems by Scott Coykendall Scott Coykendall, Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Donald Illich, Laine Elizabeth Kuehn, Elizabeth Landrum, Michael Lauchlan, James Miller, Karen June Olson, Matthew S. Parsons, John Sweet, William Walsh. While you wait, enjoy this selection from the issue.
Scott Coykendall
After house painting, I dream my dead brother comes in a rowboat
Awake and unable to remember what he said, I drift through the house, still scrubbing
the stubborn paint from my hands, cooking eggs, watching my daughters float
on their lavender sheets. In the clear light
of the kitchen, I see that he and his boat were behind me all day, yesterday:
there while I hauled paint up the ladders, there while I hauled ladders around the house.
He didn’t call out. He didn’t pitch in.
I do the work of living, getting on with it. He shadows me.
That’s the way he always turns up—so quietly a day or a month or a decade may pass
before I remember he’s standing between me and the sun.
Scott Coykendall teaches journalism, technical communication, and other writing courses at Plymouth State University. His poems have appeared in Black Fox Literary Magazine, COG, The Cossack Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Midwest Quarterly, and Quarterly West.
Muddy Bank 